the structure of magic. richard bandler

7/28/2019 The Structure of Magic. Richard Bandler

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There is an irreducible difference between the world and our experience of it.We as human beings do not operate directly on the world. Each of us createsa representation of the world in which we live - that is, we create a map ormodel which we use to generate our behavior. Our representation of theworld determines to a large degree what our experience of the world will be,

how we will perceive the world, what choices we will see available to us aswe live in the world.

Neurological Constraints.We perceive only a portion of a continuousphysical phenomenon as determined by our genetically given neurologicallimitations (i.e the 5 senses). Our nervous system, then, constitutes the firstset of filters which distinguish the world - the territory - from ourrepresentations of the world - the map.Social Constraints. Perhaps the most commonly recognized social geneticfilter is our language system.

Our experience has been that, when people come to us in therapy, theytypically come with pain, feeling themselves paralyzed, experiencing nochoices or freedom of action in their lives. What we have found is not that theworld is too limited or that there are no choices, but that these people blockthemselves from seeing those options and possibilitiesthat are open to themsince they are not available in their models o f their world.Almost every human being in our culture in his life cycle has a number ofperiods o f change and transition which he must negotiate. Different forms ofpsychotherapy have developed various categories for these importanttransition-crisis points. What's peculiar is that some people are able tonegotiate these periods of change with little difficulty, experiencing theseperiods as times of intense energy and creativity. Other people, faced with thesame challenges, experience these periods a times of dread and pain periodsto be endured, when their primary concern is simple survival. The differencebetween these two groups appears to us to be primarily that the people who

respond creatively to and cope effectively with this stress are people whohave a rich representation or model o f their situation, one in which theyperceive a wide range of options in choosing their actions. The other peopleexperience themselves as having few options, none of which are attractive tothem - the "natural loser" game. The question for us is: How is it possible fordifferent human beings faced with the same world to have such differentexperiences? Our understanding is that this difference follows primarily from


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differences in the richness of their models. Thus, the question becomes: Howis it possible for human beings to maintain an impoverished model whichcauses them pain in the face of a multi-valued, rich, and complex world?In coming to understand how it is that some people continue to causethemselves pain and anguish, it has been important for us to realize that they

are not bad, crazy, or sick. They are, in fact, making the best choices fromthose o f which they are aware, that is, the best choices available in their ownparticular model. In other words, human beings' behavior, no matter howbizarre it may first appear to be, makes sense when it is seen in the context ofthe choices generated by their model.' The difficulty is not that they aremaking the wrong choice, but that they do not have enough choices - theydon't have a richly focused image of the world. The most pervasive paradoxof the human condition which we see i s that the processes which allow us to

survive, grow, change, and experience joy are the same processes whichallow us to maintain an impoverished model of the world - our ability tomanipulate symbols, that is, to create models. So the processes which allowus to accomplish the most extraordinary and unique human activities are thesame processes which block our further growth if we commit the error ofmistaking the model for the reality. We can identify three generalmechanisms by which we do this: Generalization, Deletion, and Distortion.

Generalization is the process by which elements or pieces of a person's modelbecome detached from their original experience and come to represent theentire category o f which the experience is an example. Our ability togeneralize is essential to coping with the world. For example, it is useful forus to be able to generalize from the experience of being burned when wetouch a hot stove to a rule that hot stoves are not to be touched. But togeneralize this experience to a perception that stoves are dangerous and,therefore, to refuse to be in the same room with one is to limit unnecessarily

our movement in the world.

A second mechanism which we can use either to cope effectively or to defeatourselves is Deletion. Deletion is a process by which we selectively payattention to certain dimensions of our experience and exclude others.

Distortion is the process which allows us to make shifts in our experience of


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sensory data. Fantasy, for example, allows us to prepare for experienceswhich we may have before they occur.

Human language is a way of representationing the world. The nervous systemwhich is responsible for producing the representational system of language is

the same nervous system by which human's produce every other model of theworld . The same principles of structure are operating in each of thesesystems. Thus, the formal principles which linguists have identified as part ofthe representational system called language provide an explicit approach tounderstanding any system of human modeling .Each sentence can be represented as having a Surface and a Deep Structure."Pat loves Chris" and "Chris is loved by Pat" are two sentences that representdistinct surface forms that derive from a common deep structure. The Deep

Structure is available to any native speaker by intuition. The Deep Structureis the fullest linguistic representation of the world, but it is not the worlditself. The Deep Structure itself is derived from a fuller and richer source.The reference structure for the Deep Structure is the sum total of all of theclient's experiences of the world. The processes which specify what happensbetween the Deep Structure and the Surface Structure are the three universalprocesses of human modeling, the rules o f representation themselves:Generalization, Deletion, and Distortion.

As native speakers, we can consistently distinguish between groups of wordswhich are well formed - i.e., sentences - and groups of words which are notwell formed. That is, we can intuitively make the distinction between what iswell formed in English and what is not. What we are proposing here is thatthere is a subset of the well-formed sentences of English which we recognizeas well formed in therapy. This set, the set of sentences which are wellformed in therapy and acceptable to us as therapists, are sentences which:

(1) Are well formed in English, and(2) Contain no transformational deletions or unexplored deletions in the

portion o f the model in which the client experiences no choice.(3) Contain no nominalizations (process-event).(4) Contain no words or phrases lacking referential indices.(5) Contain no verbs incompletely specified.(6) Contain no unexplored presuppositions in the portion of the model in

which the client experiences no choice.


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(7) Contain no sentences which violate the semantic conditions of well-formedness.

The first step is for the therapist to be able to determine whether the client'sSurface Structure is a complete representation of the Deep Structure.

The client says: 'I'm scared'. The therapist now checks his (or her) intuitionsto determine whether the client's Surface Structure is complete. One way ofdoing this is to ask yourself whether you can think of another well-formedsentence in English which has the same process word 'scare' and more nounarguments than the client's Surface Structure with that same verb 'scare'. Ifyou can think of such a Surface Structure, then the client's Surface Structureis incomplete. The therapist can now ask for the piece that has beenlinguistically deleted:

C: I'm scared.T : Of what?

Either the client supplies the material in his model that has been linguisticallydeleted and the therapist's understanding of that model becomes morecomplete, or the piece missing from the client's verbal expression is alsomissing from his model. Clients begin the process of self-discovery andchange as they begin to work to fill in the missing pieces and becomeactively involved in this process of self-discovery - expanding themselves by

expanding their model of the world.

One of the ways people become immobilized is to turn an ongoing processinto an event. Events are things which occur at one point in time and arefinished. Once they occur, their outcomes are fixed and nothing can be doneto change them. This way of representing their experience is impoverishingin the sense that clients lose control of ongoing processes by representingthem as events. Linguists have identified the linguistic mechanism for turninga process into an event. This is called nominalization. The therapist's abilityto challenge the distorted portions of the client's model involving therepresentation of processes as events requires that the therapist be able torecognize nominalizations in the client's Surface Structures.For example, as the client begins to discuss some ongoing process in his life-the continuing process of his deciding to avoid confronting someone aboutsomething - he may represent this process in his Surface Structure by the


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phrase my decision: 'I really regret my decision'. The therapist, checking fordistortions, identifies the noun decision as being similar in appearance/soundand meaning to the process word decide - thus, a nominalization. The task ofthe therapist is to help the client see that what he has represented in his modelas a closed, finished event is an ongoing process which may be influenced by

him.Deep Structures are fullest linguistic representations of the client'sexperience. They may differ from that experience in a number of ways whichare already familiar to you. These are the three features which are common toall human modeling processes: Deletion, Distortion, and Generalization.These are the universal processes of human modeling - the way that peoplecreate any representation of their experience.The therapist has succeeded in involving the client in recovering the Deep

Structure - the full linguistic representation. The next step is to challenge thatDeep Structure in such a way as to enrich it. The therapist has a number ofchoices at this point. The basic principle here is that people end up in pain,not because the world is not rich enough to allow them to satisfy their needs,but because their representation of the world is impoverished.Correspondingly, then, the strategy that we as therapists adopt is to connectthe client with the world in some way which gives him a richer set of choices.In other words, the client experiences pain by having created an

impoverished representation of the world and forgetting that therepresentation is not the world.

The processes by which people impoverish their representation of theworld are the same processes by which they impoverish their expressionof their representation of the world.Challenging GeneralizationsThe demand by the therapist for full Deep Structure representations whichinclude only words and phrases which have referential indices is a demandthat the client re-connect his generalizations with the experience from whichthey came. The therapists' purpose is to obtain a clear and focused image ofthe client's model. Eg.:C: I'm scared.T : Of what?C: Of people. (No referential index)T: Who, specifically?


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C: My father scares me.We know that the client is scared and that his father scares him, but how,exactly, his father scares him is incompletely represented - what, specifically,is it that he does which scares him. The therapist asks the client to focus hisimage by the question:

T: How does your father scare you?This is again a request by the therapist for the client to connect hisgeneralization to the experience from which it was derived.The answer to this question by the client is a new Surface Structure which thetherapist now examines for completeness and clarity, asking himself whetherall the portions of the full Deep Structure representation are reflected in thatSurface Structure. The therapist continues to examine the Surface Structuresgenerated by the client, recovering the Deep Structure and challenging the

Deep Structure for generalizations which make the model unfocused andincompletely specified until the image that the therapist has of the client'smodel is clear.

Challenging DeletionsWhen human beings create their linguistic models of the world, theynecessarily select and represent certain portions of the world and fail to selectand represent others. Typically, an area in which an impoverishing deletion

has occurred is one in which the client's perception of his potential is limited- he seems to be blocked, stuck, doomed .We have identified a number o f questions which are useful in assisting theclient in expanding his model. When clients approach the limits of theirmodels, they often say things such as:

I can't trust people.It's impossible for me to trust people.

Now, since we as therapists know that either we ourselves have been able totrust others or we know someone who has succeeded in trusting someoneelse, we are aware that the world is rich enough to allow the client t o cometo trust people - it's that person's model which prevents it. The question for usthen becomes: How is it that some people are able t o trust others but ourclient is not? We get this directly by asking the client to explain the differencein his model which makes this impossible. That is, we ask:

What is it that stops you from trusting people?


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orWhat would happen if you trusted people?

The use o f the question:What stops you from... ?

is crucial in re-connecting the client to his experience in such a way as to

give him access to material which was formerly deleted and, therefore, notrepresented in his model.

Challenging DistortionBy distortion, we refer to things which are represented in the client's modelbut are twisted in some way which limits his ability to act and increases hispotential for pain. There are a number of ways in which the Deep Structuremay be distorted from the world in such a way as to create pain.

One way in which people distort their model and cause themselves pain is byassigning outside of their control responsibilities which are within theircontrol. Linguists have identified certain expressions semantically ill-formed.For example: My husband makes me mad.When the first person, the one doing the causing, is different from the personexperiencing the anger, the sentence is said to be semantically ill-formed andunacceptable. The semantic ill- formedness of sentences of this type arisesbecause it, literally, is not possible for one human being to create an emotion

in another human being .The act itself does not cause the emotion; rather, theemotion is a response generated from a model in which the client takes noresponsibility for experiences which he could control.

Guided Fantasy. The purpose o f guided fantasy is to create an experience forthe client which, at least in part if not in its entirety, has not been previouslyrepresented in his model. Guided fantasy is the creation of a new referencestructure or experience in which one achieves that which was formerly notpossible. Often, once the client has successfully generated referencestructures which contradict the generalization in his model, the generalizationdisappears, and the problems that were a result of the generalization alsodisappear or are reduced.

Therapeutic Double Binds. By therapeutic double binds we mean situations,imposed upon the client by the therapist, in which any response by the client


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will be an experience, or reference structure, which lies outside the client'smodel of the world. Thus, therapeutic double binds implicitly challenge theclient's model by forcing him into an experience which contradicts theimpoverishing limitations of his model. This contradictory experience thencomes to serve as a reference structure which expands the client's model of

the world.

For example, a client states that she has a severe headache. This is equivalentto the client's informing the therapist that she has represented some specificexperience kinesthetically in a way which is causing her pain. One verypowerful choice which the therapist has is to have her shift representationalsystems. The outcome of this shift o f representational system is assisting theclient in representing her experience in a representational system in which

she will not cause herself pain.

Each person utilises a different representational system as preferential: visual,kinesthetic, auditory, olfactory. That is why, faced with the same experience,each person will map it according to their own representational system. Mostpeople, in describing their experiences are quite literal. Comments such as 'Isee what you're saying' are most often communicated by people wno organizetheir world primarily with pictures. These are people whose most highly

valued representational system is visual and they are literaly 'making pictures'out of what they hear.In order to identify which representational system a person is using, thetherapist needs only to pay attention to the predicates (verb, adjective,adverb) the person uses to describe their experience. Eg. The man touchedthe damp floor. (kinesthetic); She saw the purple pijamas clearly (visual).Humans not only represent their exeriences by different representationalsystems, they also base their communication on them.The way that each of us represents our experience will either cause us pain orallow us an exciting, living and growing process in our lives. Morespecifically, if we choose (consciously or not) to represent certain kinds ofexperiences in one or another of our representational systems, we will succedeither in causing ourselves pain or in giving ourselves new choices. In thecase of a headache (kinesthetic) , if the therapist is able to determine theclient's most highly valued representational system other than kinesthetic (in


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this case the visual), then the therapist will be able to assist the client in re-mapping (or re-coding or re-presenting) the experience which is causing himpain from the kinesthetic system to another highly valued representationalsystem. In other words, the therapist assists the client in switching anexperience from the representational system which is causing pain into one

which will not result in pain , and will occur in a form with which the clientcan better cope.

the structure of magic. richard bandler

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